An opinion piece by an American conservative argues that the Make America Great Again (MAGA) coalition is not splitting as the US midterm elections approach. The author says the coalition that helped elect Donald Trump president in 2024 remains largely intact, and that what is happening instead is a deliberate effort to redefine what MAGA stands for.
The writer describes the tensions as a refusal by the movement’s strongest members to abandon the solidarity they built, rather than a division. The article presents Election Day 2026 as the moment when the public’s moral anger will be fully felt, and says the movement’s current leaders are heading in the opposite direction.
Author describes a coalition built on shared concerns
The author says the 2024 coalition brought together groups that had traditionally been at odds, including social conservatives, pro-life activists, devout Christians and Muslims, Quakers, disaffected leftists and first-time voters. According to the writer, these groups united behind a Republican candidate around a shared concern for the human cost of unregulated borders, overseas military interventions and a political class that allowed Jeffrey Epstein’s network to go unpunished.
In the final stretch of the campaign, the author says, he visited Syrian Christian churches in Pennsylvania and spoke with Americans whose families had suffered from US foreign policy. The conversations centred on Gaza, peace and Trump’s campaign promises. The writer says these voters came to see themselves as a unified group through their belief in electing a president who would break with the Washington establishment.
The author argues that the coalition is still largely in place. In his view, the problem lies with efforts by some figures to change its identity rather than with any collapse of the movement itself.
Israel policy and the Iran war at the centre of the dispute
The article says that in the weeks after the United States and Israel launched a war on Iran, Trump announced “I am MAGA” and insisted that the movement’s brand include the ideology of commentator Mark Levin. The author describes the war as disastrous and argues that MAGA has since become a tool of the same war-driven elites the original coalition sought to remove.
The writer names the decision to support, fund and protect Israel “at any cost” as one of the main forces driving what he calls the destruction of MAGA. He accuses Israel of carrying out a genocide in Gaza and other atrocities in the Middle East. These are the author’s claims, presented as his own view.
The article cites an April survey by Pew Research, which found that 57 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents aged 18 to 49 viewed Israel unfavourably. The author argues that young conservatives who have seen the same footage from Gaza as everyone else are unlikely to stop asking questions.
The writer also refers to a report in The New York Times, which he says described David Milstein, a senior adviser to US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee and stepson of Levin, as having repeatedly suppressed or rewritten embassy reporting on Israeli violence against Palestinians. The author says Milstein allegedly blocked reporting on killings of Palestinian Americans by Israeli settlers and security forces. The article notes that Milstein still holds his position.
Former officials and commentators named as dissenters
The author points to several public figures who he says have kept the coalition’s original message. He says Joe Kent, Trump’s former counterterrorism chief, resigned over the Iran war and publicly described the Israeli and lobbying pressure he believed had helped bring it about. He also credits former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard with stating that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon and had not rebuilt its enrichment capability since the 12-day war of 2025.
The article says former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and congressman Thomas Massie opposed the Gaza war and the handling of the Epstein case. According to the author, Greene resigned and Massie lost his primary after a multimillion-dollar campaign to unseat him. The writer also says conservative activist Carrie Prejean Boller lost her seat on Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission after defending Christian opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The author adds that commentators Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones used their platforms to challenge Trump over the Iran war and US backing of Israeli actions against Palestinians. He also names comedians and podcasters Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Tim Dillon. The writer notes that Rogan endorsed Trump, Von interviewed him, and Dillon hosted JD Vance after he became the vice presidential nominee. He says these figures now criticise the bloodshed and broken promises across Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and Iran.
Author warns of consequences for the Republican Party
The author argues that these figures preview the direction the coalition may take, and that voters will be able to recognise the candidates they support. He says he and “millions of others” will back them. He warns that pressuring voters whose support the administration has lost will have predictable consequences for the party.
In the article’s closing argument, the writer says the “new” MAGA will fall not because the coalition is disintegrating, but because the original coalition remains strong. He ends with the line “And we have not yet begun to fight.”
The article states that its views are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of the publication. The claims about Israel, the Iran war and named individuals are the author’s arguments and have not been independently verified in this report.
